RTPnet Meetings

1989

October 16, 1989: Meeting of Community BBS Working Group, had an "Overview of Proposed System"

November 8, 1989: Meeting of Community BBS Working Group, changed name to Public Information Network Working Group (PINWOG), Larry London reported on Chapel Hill status, Greg Woodbury reported on proposal for hardware, operating system, and user interface

December 20, 1989: PINWOG: Orange County is working on a 24-hour PC-based service, touch screen, two locations (Post Office and Mall), PIN Facilities Proposal (The Public Information Network (PIN) is a proposed computer information system available to citizens and local government)

1990

May 8, 1990: Meeting with representatives of Orange County, Orange Water and Sewer Authority (OWASA), Town of Carrboro, Town of Hillsborough, and Town of Chapel Hill to discuss PINWOG proposal

February 18, 1991: PINWOG: Looked at statistics on modems in homes. Hutchins will present a petition for funding to the Chapel Hill Town Council on February 25. Hallman will upload screens and menus and London will set up a simulation.

March 4, 1991: PINWOG: The group looked at the Cleveland system and UNC's INFO service.

March 18, 1991: PINWOG: The IRS sent a list of 23 questions. We reviewed the questions and Huchins proposed responses.

April 15, 1991: PINWOG: Discussed determining type of terminal being used so that information can be displayed properly and similarities and differences between data, bulletin board messages, and personal messages.

April 29, 1991: PINWOG: Need a planning document, product goals, identification of user market. Voice and Touchtone phone as an alternative or supplement to a computer bulletin board. Systems being built by agencies in NC  CONCERT for Universities, State Information Processing Services (SIPS), Highway Patrol, Department of Commerce.

June 24, 1991: PINWOG: Magnuson is putting together a 15-minute presentation that any board member can give. Faulkner presented draft proposal of software specifications.

July 1, 1991: PINWOG: Magnuson has prepared 13 slides for a talk and will upload them to Faulkner's board. Should menus be structured by subject or function or a combination? How will we deal with offensive remarks?

August 25, 1992: Public: Organizing Meeting: Triangle Free-Net at the Friday Center in Chapel Hill  "About 50 people attended this first meeting. After viewing a 15-minute video (download Flash 8) from the National Public Telecomputing Network (NPTN) about the Freenet, a round of self-introductions revealed that many of the attendees were computing-related professionals, but librarians, educators, writers, and others with a general interest in information exchange were represented as well. ..." Five working committees were set up, funding, public relations, technical, data, and operations.

September 15, 1992: Directors: Proposal for by-law changes to define membership, recommendation to let the Free-Net funding committee come up with a strategy to propose to PIN, Free-Net committees should report back to PIN  HTML, MS Word

August 2, 1994: Directors: Bank balance $2,905.49, MBA Practicum Proposal submitted to Kenan-Flagler Business School to develop a business plan, negotiating with Interpath to house the machine, draft agreement with Interpath

April 3, 1995: Directors: Domain tfnet.org not available, use rtpnet.org instead, negotiating with local companies to provide a home for our service, draft home page giving credit to those whose support makes Triangle Free-Net possible, authorized the installation of one phone line (for system operator)

June 16, 1995: Directors: Balance $4,926.00. Financial records now in Quicken. Insurance, status of registration software, moving the machine, development of policies and procedures

August 16, 1995: Directors: Surles resigned as Treasurer. Hutchins resigned as President. Both remain on the Board. Eddleman elected Treasurer, Rulison Secretary. Free-Net computer will be moved to the Internet Center, but their new facility is not operational yet. Leadership, projects, and problems.

October 11, 1995: Directors: Tom Hocking elected President. RTPNet moved to TheInternet Center, policies complete and adopted by the Board with a couple of revisions, liability insurance, Orange County project

February 28, 1996: Directors: Domain name (rtpnet.org) became active mid-February, system crashes, Internet Center to add one additional phone line for RTPnet, offer email lists for members, service award certificates and $75 honorarium approved for Lou Sortman, Matt Pardo and Bill Evans, approved purchase of two 28.8 modems, approved by-law changes creating a class of members (13.07)

March 19, 1996: Directors: Annual elections: Re-elected Board members with expired terms. Board: Eddleman, Evans, Hallman, Hocking, Hutchins, Rulison, Surles, Watson. Elected Bob Gotwals. Approved use of Orange County funds to purchase a computer to use as a public access terminal, HP9000/360 system reliability is still a problem, system "crashes"

April 17, 1996: Directors: Setting up a 386 computer with Linux to be a public terminal in Orange County Public Library, server still crashes, root access, backups, some interest in Multi User Dungeons (MUDs), email list will be renamed from rtpfreenet to RTPnet, using news groups for forums may have problems with ISPs (AOL) that don't provide access to them, recruit Board members

May 14, 1996: Directors: Hocking resigned. Hallman Acting President. Purchased a PC, Pentium 100 MHz, 8 meg RAM, 1 gig Harddrive to be used as a public access terminal in Orange County Public Library ($1,746.88), increased a table size in HP which appears to have fixed the "crashes" problem, working on backups, authorized purchase of a Pentium for joint/backup use with HP, established a Board of Advisors, discussion of RTPnet and content review, liability and censorship

July 15, 1996: Directors: In May, purchased a pentium computer to be used as a backup for the RTPnet server ($1,700.00), in addition to the computer for the Library. Expenses so far in 1996: $4,406.12. Current Balance: $2,684.63. PC now in Orange County Public Library with Win95 in kiosk mode, phone line will be installed, restricted to local calls, RTPnet to pay charges, Ken Dietel has almost completed a training outline, agreed that RTPnet can develop listserv capability, agreed to disallow personal Web pages

October 7, 1996: Directors: Surles and Evans resigned. rtpnet02 is running RedHat Linux, had the rtpnet backup installed on August 23, however, it is not operable. Our systems people have limited time to work on it. Report on status of Birchwood Heights. Approved pass through contributions designated for Birchwood Heights and a donation of $50. A local Service provider has the Orange County Library computer on the Internet, classes are being taught. We are in the final 200 for Z. Smith Reynolds. Discussion of CitySearch and the future of PIN.

December 5, 1996: Directors: Status of grant proposals, projects (Orange County, Birchwood Heights, Joe Morris will work on transfering the system to rtpnet02), plans to ask members to make a good-will contribution after the new server is in place

June 17, 1997: Directors: Annual elections held by email. Added Tom Davis, Amnon Nissan, Jane Sparks; re-elected Hallman, Hutchins, Rulison, moving rtpnet.org to the new machine has been completed, Joe Morris providing system support, approved an annual assessment for accounts, accounts categorized as established and linked, looks good but not linked, in development, not started, commercial and need to move, personal and need to move, don't ask for money, systems, no record

May 17, 1999: Directors: Elections, discussion on the continuation of the Birchwood Project, concerns about the future of RTPnet, need to engage in more promotion of services, discussed a proposed new main page
 HTML, MS Word

January 31, 2006: Directors: Special meeting on upgrading the RTPnet server and software, Amnon and Ron Bickers will do the upgrade and run the new system, ideas for advertising/marketing, hosting
service offering a "managed space" for "communities of practice," survey existing RTPnet
customers, 2006 NC Community Technology Conference is cancelled

June 1, 2006: Directors: A representative of NetCorps attended to discuss ways that RTPnet and NetCorps might collaborate. The Bylaws were changed to allow more Board members. Instead of restricting the size of the Board to nine members, the new Bylaws allow the size of the Board to vary from three to 13. Survey emailed to current members. Discussed Drupal/CiviCRM.

March 20, 2007: Virtual board meeting using ReadyTalk, led by Mike Rulison. Judy Hallman showed some of the features of the Drupal/CiviCRM site.

May 29, 2007: Directors with advisors, to review and discuss NCCommunities, a proposed membership-based service learning center where nonprofit technology assistance providers can learn to use new tools.

March 26, 2009: Directors,
Annual elections: Board members and officers were re-elected in a subsequent phone call due to lack of quorum.

June 17, 2009: Directors,
A study of homeowner associations and neighborhoods as a possible target market for RTPnet services was conducted by two Elon University MBA students. The study focused on this question: How can RTPnet differentiate itself from other low-cost providers? (Like provide assistance with site maintenance.)

March 30, 2011: Directors,
Annual elections: Alice Denson and Heather Hesketh stepped down from the board; Bob Sams and Marjorie Fowler were re-elected; Warren Fuson will continue as CFO; Andy Huyck was elected secretary. Rebecca Currie would like to step down from doing web hosting billing; the Board will consider hiring a customer service person.

March 29, 2012: Directors,
Annual elections: Leandra Ganko stepped down from the board; Mark Ishman was not re-elected; Amnon Nissan and Jeff Mountz; were re-elected; Dale Chodorow joined the board; Warren Fuson stepped down from the CFO position and Amnon Nissan was elected CFO; Marjorie Fowler remained as President, Bob Sams as Vice-President, and Andy Fuson as Secretary. RTPnet membership remains constant; a marketing campaign was initiated to draw small home owners associations. Billing and bookkeeping software will be investigated. The organization has several websites: PINInc.org (Wordpress), RTPnet.org (Joomla), and NCCommunities.org (Drupal), Ibiblio.org/RTPnet (an archive on Ibiblio), NCTech4Good.org (Drupal), and Meetup.com/nctech4good (paid for by NetSquare, 400 members).

September 3, 2013: Directors,
Annual elections: Nancy Starr was not re-elected to the board; Andy Fuson, Warren Fuson, and Paula Jones were re-elected; Judy Hallman rejoined the board; Amnon Nissan stepped down as CFO and Judy Hallman was elected CFO; Marjorie Fowler remains as President, Bob Sams as Vice-President, and Andy Fuson as Secretary. Amnon will continue to do RTPnet billing (using COIN software). NCTech4Good.org is now a WordPress site and no longer runs under nccommunities.org (Drupal). The NCTech4Good Conference makes a small profit each year; a day-long workshop was added; the board approved paying a big name speaker for the workshop and keynote. Amnon's backups for running the RTPNet hosting service are Ron and Jason.

September 11, 2014: Directors,
Annual elections: Bob Sams passed away; Marjorie Fowler and Judy Hallman were re-elected to the board; Paula Jones was elected Vice President; Marjorie Fowler remains as President, Judy Hallman as CFO, and Andy Fuson as Secretary. RTPNet lost one of its biggest clients; a committee was formed to review the situation for RTPNet's hosting services; the committee recommended ending RTPnet hosting services and the board agreed; RTPnet hosting services will be terminated on Dec. 31, 2014. The 5th annual NCTech4Good conference, with Beth Kanter, was highly successful.

November 17, 2015: Directors, This was a phone meeting.
Annual elections: Amnon Nissan and Dale Chodorow were re-elected; Jeff Mountz was not re-elected. All officers kept their positions. RTPNet was smoothly shut down. Membership committee is Paula, Amnon, and Judy.

March 2, 2016: Directors,
Annual elections: Jeanne Allen was elected the board; Warren Fuson and Andy Fuson stepped down from the board; Marjorie Fowler stepped down as president; Paula Jones agree to be president; Dale Chodorow was elected secretary; Judy remains CFO. Public Information Network, Inc. mission statement was reviewed.
Dates agreed to for meetings were March 2, June 29 and November 2, 2016. The 2015 NCTech4Good Conference (with Idealware presenting the workshop and keynote) had a small loss; changes will be made in 2016. Two CDs at Self Help Credit Union provide a financial cushion should that ever be needed.